Tirupur

India is witnessing the second driest pre-monsoon season in the last 65 years. As the country eagerly eyes the monsoon clouds, the delay so far has now widened the rain deficit to 43%.

Sixty eight percent of India's population lives in rural areas but when it comes to facilities -- including the availability of safe drinking water -- cities and towns corner most of them.

This paper published on the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC) website examines the reasons behind the new project and the institutional, financial and legal aspects of the Tirupur PPP.

It also examines important legal issues such as the right to water, competing interests in water, financing of projects, waste water management and the environmental consequences of the PPP. More particularly, it questions the wisdom of planning a water supply project that seeks to prioritize the needs of a polluting industry over the basic water needs of the region.

The New Tirupur Area Development Corporation Limited (NTADCL) is the first public private partnership, set up in 1995 primarily to supply industrial water to Tirupur, a major export centre for knitwear, in India. This water supply and sewerage project is also the first project to be structured on a commercial format; first concession by a state government to a public limited company to draw raw water for domestic and industrial uses and to collect revenues; the first index-based user charges and direct cost recovery for urban environmental services.

The objectives of the case study by TIDE supported by Arghyam on the Tirupur textile industry cluster included:

The initiative aims at: